I have a notebook which sometimes I use with an external keyboard. Its built-in keyboard has some keys which I'd like to remap, however, I don't want to make any changes to the external keyboard.
I am aware of this question from 2012, but I'd like to have a different solution (a more user-friend one) if possible.
I use Win 10 on an Acer Aspire E 13.
You can use SharpKeys to remap any key you want. I also use Win 10 and it work verry nice. Don't forget to restart your computer after Write to Registry.
Related
I have searched all corners of the internet, yet to find an answer to my simple question:
How to place, directly from keyboard input, the Em-Dash "—" character onto a code editor such as Notepad++ or Dreamweaver using modern notebooks (such as a dell xps 13" 2015, win10 64bit) without:
any extended keyboard numbpad, obviously;
any third party automation scripting softwares;
any charactermap insertion tools such as windows charactermap
How? Thanks!
I imagine you're asking about how to do it in Windows here.
I assume you know how you'd do it if you had a numeric keypad (Alt + 0151 if as it seems you are on the 1252 code page).
See also Insert Unicode characters via the keyboard? , in order to use the unicode value (Alt + +2014) .
This is an at least related question: How to emulate numpad on a PC laptop?
Possible solutions:
Most notebooks do have an hidden "numpad", accessible through the Fn key (see for example https://www.dummies.com/computers/pcs/the-hidden-numeric-keypad-on-your-laptop/ ).
I couldn't find out for sure if the Dell XPS 13 specifically does, but it is very likely.
This Me and My Dell manual (Using numeric keypad on a laptop) seems to explain its usage for all Dell laptops.
Use copy and paste (copy the character from some place and paste in the editor). A clipboard manager might help you if you choose to go this way.
You might also use some third-party software to have that character emitted when you press a key or shortcut, but I guess that is included in your "third party automation scripting softwares" prescription.
Use the unicode combination! I now found out that with that one you can use indifferently both numbers from the keypad and normal ones !
Unfortunately it still requires the numpad's "plus" (add) key, so you need to be able to type at least that.
See Insert Unicode characters via the keyboard? or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_input to learn how to enable the combination, if it is not already enabled.
If there indeed exist laptops with no numeric keypad support unfortunately the Windows developers didn't fully anticipate for that; it probably wouldn't take much and wouldn't have negative repercussions for Windows to support the insertion via the normal numeric keys (or the normal + for the Unicode combination), but for now it's not supported (as far as I know).
It would be a bad mistake on the part of the laptops' developers to not include any way to type the numpad keys, though, as they are required by many programs.
Do you change the key binding in the OS to be, i.e., Ctrl-Q?
Do you manage to stretch your left hand to the C key?
Do you use right ctrl and press shortcuts with your right hand?
When I switched to Dvorak, I was using primarily Ctrl+Ins and Shift+Ins for copy/paste. Now I use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V and other program-specific shortcuts, but I have just learned to use them in their "weird" locations.
A similar question was asked on SuperUser, with the following answers:
Use an AutoHotKey script to remap the keys. (Link)
Use Microsoft Keyboard Creator to remap them. (Link)
Install a third-party app that will remap them automatically. (Link, Link)
macs have it built in. there is a keyboard layout for dvorak with querty shortcuts. for windows, i use https://code.google.com/p/dvorak-qwerty/ it works well with ctrl and alt but dosen't work with the Win Key, which is not that bad.
The program AutoHotKey is what I use to map C,X, and V to their Querty origin.
I use none of the proposed solutions: instead, I modify CapsLock so that it becomes a dead-key that I use to program various actions. For example, when I press CapsLock and the key marked (in QWERTY)
S, this is mapped to Ctrl-X (and thus cut)
D, this is mapped to Ctrl-C (and thus copy)
F, this is mapped to Ctrl-V (and thus paste)
I, this is mapped to up-arrow
K, this is mapped to down-arrow
J, this is mapped to left-arrow
L, this is mapped to right-arrow
etc.
This is was dubbed 'Home Row computing' by Gustavo Duarte when he introduced this idea in https://manybutfinite.com/post/home-row-computing/ and then https://manybutfinite.com/post/home-row-computing-on-mac/
I'm pretty sure that this amounts for a large part of the speed I gained when typing, in addition to touch-typing.
On Linux, the solution that works great with some versions of Gnome on Wayland is this. It will set up all the rules on installation and will work transparently.
Previous answer:
Using Cinnamon, the following works when typing in some applications (i.e. vscode editor):
In keyboard settings, add QWERTY keyboard layout as the first in the list,
add Dvorak layout as the second
When typing text in an editor using the Dvorak layout, pressing Ctrl will still use the first (qwerty) layout.
This does not work in other applications, like Firefox browser, for example so can be pretty confusing.
Having a shortcut (i.e. Alt+Shift) for switching layouts assists in those cases.
While can be difficult at times, the advantage of this approach seems to be that it does not require additional software.
I've written Dvertkey, an AutoHotKey script, for this.
I've been a dvorak user for sixteen years, and for years I've used the various alternative keymaps mentioned in this thread, but all of them fall down when using a number of recent incarnations of Microsoft applications, such as the Office apps and SQL Server Management Studio. They seem to ignore Windows' own keymaps when using meta keys, rendering the hybrid layouts useless. AutoHotKey gets around this to ensure I get exactly what I want in any application.
I've been using Dvorak for so long now that I couldn't imagine remapping ctrl-c and other hotkeys to be in any other location than where they are supposed to be on the Dvorak keyboard. As for hotkeys, it's much easier and more natural to just use two hands to do the combinations. Use the left hand for ctrl and the other hand for the c-key. It would be too confusing to try and think ctrl-c and then press something else.
For the occasional windows game that requires WASD, I just switch the keyboard for the duration and if that means typing QWERTY sentences in chat then I just mentally switch and type a little bit slower.
Those characters are accessible with the right control key (a bit of a stretch for the x). If you are right handed, and have your right hand on the mouse, just move your left hand to the right control key and do the key combination
I can't use any shortcut that has meta-shift (alt and shift) in it because ubuntu will treat it as "change keyboard layout" shortcut (I map it to alt-shift since I use the same shortcut in windows) as soon as I press m-s. In windows change keyboard layout shortcut doesn't register until you release the key so any shortcut with m-s is usable in windows.
Is there any work-around without changing shortcut or meta key ? I kinda used to it.
Change the Ubuntu change-keyboard-layout shortcut, to something else.
Or use Esc as Meta
Nothing easy that I know of.
You can manually bind everything that's M-S-??? to C-M-S-??? in your .emacs or at least all of the ones that you use...
Or you can just change the short-cut... how often do you change the keyboard layout? (I use dvorak, and qwerty, but I've never needed a shortcut for it, I just use the button...)
I have tried different things, and in my opinion it is best to change the layout shortcut to something else. The power of emacs is all in its shortcuts that are available right there under your fingers. If you move the M key away and make it harder to reach, it will most surely have a negative impact on your editing speed.
Right now I'm trying to get used to switching layouts with the right Alt key. I almost never use it for anything, so missing it won't be a problem. And from my experience teaching yourself to switch layouts with another combination is a matter of several days.
P.S. Also it pays to use Caps-Lock as an additional Ctrl key, it helps tremendously!
Business as usual: I've logged into my Linux machine from my MacBook Pro using NX, opened a terminal, and ... key bindings with M- (Meta-) do not work. (Talking about bash, of course.) Wait for it. I'm using a PC keyboard hooked up to my Mac (I cannot work on a cramped laptop keyboard). So I decided to investigate: used xev to capture events. When I press left 'Alt' on the PC keyboard, 'xev' reports that 'Meta_L' got depressed. Problem is, it seems that it gets ignored for some reason (no idea why).
It is really annoying, because the same is true for Eclipse. Practically all key bindings with Alt- in them are gone.
My hunch would be to use xmodmap to force the left Alt key to actually emit 'Alt_L', but I wanted to hear a second opinion.
It turns out, the problem was that, according to 'xmodmap -pm', Meta_L and Meta_R were not in Mod1 special modifier category. When I moved them there, everything started to work. (Turns out, some programs assume, incorrectly, that 'Mod1' is Meta/Alt, and ignore keysyms like Meta_L.)
I have a Microsoft keyboard with a series of non-standard buttons such as "Mail", "Search" , "Web/Home" etc.
It would be nice to be able to bind these keys so they execute arbitrary programs.
Does anybody know how to do this in Debian Etch?
I can't say for certain because I'm not using Debian but if you're using Gnome the easiest way is to run gnome-keybinding-properties (System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts)
Instead of typing a shortcut such as Ctrl+M, hit the button on your keyboard.
If you would prefer to do this via command line or with a different desktop environment, this may help: Unusual keys and keyboards
Running Debian, I had the same issue. What I did is run xev and see what keycode those keys return. Microsoft likes to break standards a little, so some of the multimedia keys just won't work. But the ones that do will return a keycode. Then write a script with xmodmap to map those keys properly.
The Gentoo Wiki has excellent documentation on how to do these things.
I put my xmodmap script in ~/.kde/Autostart/ because I use kde, but you could just as easily put it in your home folder and have your .bashrc or .profile source it.
Once you've mapped the keycodes, you can assign those keys to specific actions in your desktop environment.
I used Gizmo Daemon for my PowerMate under Debian - it supports fancy keyboard keys as well (although I haven't tried it for those keys). Hacking on gizmod to get it to do what I wanted was pretty easy.
Gizmo Daemon
There's a few different ways to do so, the easiest generally being keytouch, which is probably available in the Debian repositories. The user manual is here. There is a chance that your keyboard won't work with it though.
If you want to do it manualy you can edit ~/.xmodmap
and use xmodmap ~/.xmodmap to apply the modifications